Performance - London 333 - 15/6/07
4/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Ah, Performance (a.k.a. [We Are] Performance), such a band hath not existed before. Maybe in sound they're similar to a lot of other acts, mainly ones from 1981, but the hard and often uncomfortably tense nature of their live routine has yet to be matched by any of their Manchester classmates. It's brutal, almost painful to watch as Joe Stretch, the inescapably fascinating front to the band, jerks and grinds his way through the most glittery and sadistic retro-electro around. It's complete, unashamed pop by sound but behind the sunny façade is a well of angst and sinister poetry, rancid and bitterly engaging.
The sound in the venue wasn't great, and the displeasure of the band was visible in their frustrated performance, though it is often hard to tell whether Joe is worked into an energetic or aggressive frenzy, or indeed whether he's put himself into one. He has a tight, Ian Curtis-like style which knits into the intense riffs that surge through all of the bands songs forming a highly palpable bang of danceable melodies and synthesiser commitment. Think if you would; Ian Curtis fronting Franz Ferdinand playing Human League songs and you're getting there, with all of the genii combined into an epic spree of electric dreams.
Although their performing style is what keeps you visually alert, the songs themselves could run away and live quite happily as they are, bright, attentive and alluring, and at core of each a direct pummel of the most well-constructed keyboard orchestrations heard in a good while. The set list was incredible, 'Dotted Line' railing into the uber-smash noise eargasm of 'Surrender', a track that never gets old no mater how many times you hear it. When it first starts to spin in your head you speculate how such a forceful song could be pulled off live and as you stand, propped as an eager puppy, front and centre, the foot-thudding of your bedroom listening is amplified with every immense judder of this intrinsic and essential dancefloor anthem. Joe somehow leans into your brain and exhibits the way their music makes you feel, angry and watchful while being completely constrained and vigilant. The stage hovered several feet above the crowd and as Joe stepped out onto the speakers, and over the make-shift scaffold divide to get closer to the dumbfounded audience, it took yet another lunge into concentration with people tugging at their shirts and screeching the lyrics back at him as though at some kind of apocalyptic debate.
The set eventually found its way, through all the blood, sweat and beers, to its ultimate climax and the rioting of 'Short Sharp Shock' a track that's so extreme it took the whole band, both male and female counterparts working like wound up council workers, to pull it off. They managed to evocate their way through most of the debut album, an album which incidentally is so incredible and harshly limited that even we have to linger anxiously by the door waiting for our mats to sink with a whole array of extras they've thrown into it with signed posters, fanzines and whatnot. The wonder that this band has yet to be picked up by the hype-generators is utterly baffling and the idea of seeing a group this good play in such enclosed venues and with such connection goes far beyond mere attraction, veering towards devotion and lust, becoming so exciting you wont be able to sit down or operate heavy machinery for a week after seeing them.
There's so much to see and discover from this band that you have to go out there and capture it for yourself... and procure their debut album as it's one of the most exciting long players of the year, if only to hear how such dark verse can work with such happy riffs. The mind boggles.
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